Demjanjuk attorney: testimony raises doubts

MUNICH – John Demjanjuk's defense attorney said Tuesday that transcripts of testimony by a former guard at a Nazi death camp, who acknowledged that he was tortured by the Soviets into confessing to committing war crimes, show that all such confessions should be considered suspect.

In the transcript of the 1951 trial in the Soviet Union, read into the record as evidence Tuesday at the Munich state court, a former Red Army soldier who was captured by the Nazis and then served as a guard at Majdanek camp said he confessed to killing Jews only after being beaten.

The soldier told the Soviet court he had been a guard at Majdanek, but had not participated in any killing, according to the transcript.

Defense attorney Ulrich Busch used the confession of alleged torture as an example of why testimonies like that should not be considered as evidence in the current trial....